A February EdWeek Research Center survey asked educators whether they support or oppose federal mandates that guarantee English learners the right to language acquisition support, and undocumented students the right to a free, public education.
Results from 1,268 educators revealed a partisan divide in opinions based on whether educators voted for Kamala Harris, the incumbent vice president, and Tim Walz, the governor of Minnesota, or Donald Trump, the former president, and JD Vance, the junior U.S. senator from Ohio, in last year’s election. Educators who voted for Harris were more likely to support these mandates than Trump voters.
The partisan divide persisted even when accounting for whether educators worked with both English learners and foreign-born students.
The findings come at a time when the Trump administration rolled back protections for immigrant students, including rescinding policies that made schools “protected areas” from immigration enforcement; signed an executive order declaring English the nation’s official language; and gutted the federal office dedicated to English learners and immigrant students amid massive dismissals at the U.S. Department of Education.
Researchers focusing on English learners and immigrant students say educators’ opposition of these mandates can negatively affect the educational experiences of students who often face low expectations from teachers and peers due to their English language skills and/or national background. Educators who participated in the survey spoke more about the systemic issues that complicate their work, such as a lack of resources and heavy workloads.
“It is concerning, certainly, to think that there would be broad swaths of the professional field that don’t think that their job is to uphold those rights, or that they are calling into question the very presence of those students in our classroom,” said Ariana Mangual Figueroa, associate professor of urban education & Latin American, Iberian, and Latino cultures at the CUNY Graduate Center.
“Teacher dispositions around the rights or presence of students in their classrooms is likely to have an impact on teacher sensitivity towards teaching those populations.”
English learners’ language support needs seen as a burden
The 1974 U.S. Supreme Court decision in the case of Lau v. Nichols established a federal mandate that requires schools to provide English learners with support for acquiring the English language to have equal access to education.
In the February survey, 88% of Harris voters working with English learners and immigrant students said they support this mandate, along with 69% of Trump voters.
If educators don’t support public schools teaching the English language to students, it implies that students are expected to learn it elsewhere, said Phitsamay Uy, associate professor of leadership in schooling at the University of Massachusetts, Lowell. That belief is likely driven by teachers feeling they already have so many demands in their jobs that adding on language instruction becomes too much, she added.
In such cases, students and families end up viewed as a burden rather than as learners navigating a system built primarily for English speakers.
“The deficit model [is] you blame the students, you blame the families for not speaking English, as opposed to a system,” Uy said.
This mindsetcan lead to lower teacher expectations, which, in turn, lead to worse educational outcomes for students, Uy said.
“[Students] internalize it like, ‘Oh, I’m not smart enough because my teacher doesn’t think I’m smart enough,’ as opposed to, ‘Oh, I’m not learning in the language that I need,’” she added.
More research in recent years has pointed to the benefits for all students when general education teachers teach language through academic content. But this doesn’t always work out in practice.
Eric Mullholand, a social studies teacher at the Carey Exempted Village Schools district in Carey, Ohio, participated in the February survey. He works in a conservative area in the northern part of the state and said he isn’t surprised by the survey results.
Part of his concern with the federal mandate on language support is the lack of funding and resources he sees from state and federal leaders to meet the mandate.
In a district like his, of about 850 students, budgets are always tight, and cuts happen to various programs. Hiring specialists to work with English learners complicates this scenario, he said. On top of that, some of the English learners who arrived in the district in recent years are often absent from school, engagement with families runs up against language barriers, and English-as-a-second-language teachers are hard to find and keep, Mullholand added.
Then there’s the lack of training among teachers of regular academic subjects, like himself, to work with English learners.
“In some cases, we’ve never had some of those types of students. Teachers have never had that before, and now you’ve suddenly got a kid who speaks zero English, you don’t speak any Spanish, you don’t have any resources to turn to, it makes it tough,” Mullholand said.
“I’m sure they’re not getting as much as they could or should or deserve to, in a lot of ways, just because the resources aren’t always there,” he added.
Teachers need more training on how to work with immigrant students, experts say
Lack of training and resources also hampers teachers’ ability to support students born outside of the United States.
The 1982 U.S. Supreme Court decision in the Plyler v. Doe established a federal mandate that students can attend public schools for free regardless of their immigration status.
Since Trump’s election win, at least five states have taken action to undermine that mandate.
In the February EdWeek Research Center survey, 87% of Harris voters serving both English learners and immigrant students said they supported this mandate, compared with 35% of Trump voters.
Overall, 99%% of Harris voters felt immigration officials should not be permitted to make arrests or carry out raids in schools, compared with 58% of Trump voters. When asked about their own workplaces specifically, the divide persisted: 98% of Harris voters versus 63% of Trump voters opposed such actions
Tatyana Kleyn, a professor of bilingual education and Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages at The City College of New York, said that students tend to pick up on anti-immigrant sentiments held by their teachers and peers. They start to question whether teachers respect them or even believe in them.
That’s why Kleyn believes more teachers should learn some fundamentals around immigration and the processes students and their families face when coming to the United States. That includes training for bilingual and English-as-a-second-language teachers who know how to teach language acquisition but may not necessarily be well-versed in immigration policy.
“I feel like, as a system, we are not preparing teachers to work with immigrant students,” Kleyn said. “Every time you turn on the news or social media where we’re talking about immigration, and it’s often in a very negative way, so we’re not getting the full picture, and educators are included in that.”
Mangual Figueroa, who is working with Kleyn on the CUNY Initiative on Immigration and Education, a teacher training program on the intersection of immigration and education, said that while some states like New York have mandates for training teachers to work with English learners, few require training on immigration policy and students’ rights.
Creating such requirements could help address bias and knowledge gaps, she added.
Still, some teachers aren’t convinced more training is the answer—or that it would change much.
Daniel Herdegen, a social studies teacher at the virtual high school of the West ADA school district in Meridian, Idaho, participated in the EdWeek Research Center survey. The district enrolls close to 40,000 students.
While he believes all students should have the means to thrive and grow in schools, even if that means providing them with specialized support, he doesn’t agree with undocumented students getting access to a free service like public education.
“I think everybody has a right to a free public education. On the other end, [if] they’re undocumented, that means that they came in here, to me, not the right way,” Herdegen said. “And so if you did not come in through legal means, you’re skipping the line of the people that are trying to get in here legally. And I do not believe you have right to services at all.”
Not all undocumented immigrants enter the country illegally, as in the case of those who overstay a visa, and some even have temporary protection from deportation, such as those with Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals.
That said, Herdegen doesn’t think such personal opinions translate to teachers’ work in the classroom.
“We’re human beings. We went into this profession because we want to help people. It’s not our call that they’re in our classroom or not in our classroom. If they’re in our classroom, we’re going to do the best by our students,” he said.
Experts said it’s not solely on teachers to ensure English learners and immigrant students’ rights are met.
“What I think is important is not just looking at what the teacher’s beliefs are, but what is the school doing,” Kleyn said.
For instance, are schools collaborating with local organizations to help meet students’ and families’ needs? Are schedules made to allow for collaborative planning among teachers? Are resources being allocated in the best way to serve students and not overwhelm teachers in the process?
Mullholand in Ohio, for instance, sees an opportunity for his and other local small districts to band together in sharing resources and training to ensure the small number of English learners they serve have access to quality language instruction.
But he noted such efforts would require buy-in and investment from districts and perhaps even state leaders.
